Paris meeting to tackle rise in terrorism

Date: 18/07/1996

By Thomas Klau

FOREIGN and home affairs ministers of the G7 and Russia will gather in Paris at the end of this month for an unprecedented brainstorming session on how best to fight terrorism.

The meeting, to be held on 30 July, follows the bomb attack on an American army barracks in Saudi Arabia.

Government leaders agreed to hold such a gathering during the summit between Russia and the seven leading industrial countries at the end of last month in Lyon, but a date for the event was only announced yesterday (17 July).

French officials deny it will amount merely to a public relations exercise and stress that experts are currently examining a number of measures.

The ministerial G8 meeting, they say, is part of a long-term anti-terrorist strategy focused on improving cooperation between national administrations, the enforcement of existing conventions and harmonising laws on extradition and other issues.

The G8 meeting will mirror efforts currently being made within the Union, where harmonisation of anti-terrorist legislation and improved judicial, police and administrative links have topped the policy agenda of the Maastricht Treaty's third pillar on cooperation in judicial and home affairs.

One of the issues the Paris talks are likely to focus on, apart from better international cooperation, is improving G8 efforts to combat national support for terrorist activities abroad.

“Currently, terrorists can get a detailed description of how to build a bomb on the Internet,” explained a French official. “We have to take effective measures against such developments.”

As the G8 heads of state and government stressed in their summit declaration, the fight against terrorism must include related activities such as fund-raising, the preparation of terrorist acts, recruiting, the acquisition of arms and incitement to violent acts. Specific attention will also be given to the threat of terrorist use of nuclear, chemical and biological products and other toxic substances.

According to French officials, no decision has yet been taken on whether this month's meeting will to be a one-off event, or will mark the beginning of a series of regular G8 ministerial gatherings focusing on the fight against terrorist activities.

But senior French political commentators such as Jacques Attali, a former aide of the late French president François Mitterrand, have already warned against strengthening the tendency to endow the G7 or the G8 with competences beyond economical issues, fearing this would lead to a further weakening of legally-established international institutions such as the United Nations.